Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.
Where can I free myself of the homeland in my body?
I am patient and am waiting for a profound revolution in the consciousness of the Israelis. The Arabs are ready to accept a strong Israel with nuclear arms – all it has to do is open the gates of its fortress and make peace.
I love women whose hidden desires make horses put an end to their lives at the threshold.
The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality.
I see poetry as spiritual medicine.
The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.
I’ve built my homeland, I’ve even founded my state – in my language.
I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don’t hate Jews.
History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood So that I could break the rule I learnt all the words and broke them up To make a single word: Homeland...
And what I don’t understand I grasp it only when it’s too late.
I want to find a language that transforms language itself into steel for the spirit – a language to use against these sparkling insects, these jets.
I never wanted children; maybe I’m afraid of responsibility.
I wish I were a candle in the darkness.
May poetry and God’s name have mercy on us!
Sometimes I feel as if I am read before I write. When I write a poem about my mother, Palestinians think my mother is a symbol for Palestine. But I write as a poet, and my mother is my mother. She’s not a symbol.
The poem is in my hands, and can run stories through her hands.
Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile.
For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.
When a writer declares that his first book is his best, that is bad. I progress successively from book to book.